Josh Bolten started by shaking up the staff. Next comes a five-point White House recovery plan

At the George W. Bush campaign headquarters in Austin, Texas, in 1999, policy director Josh Bolten was a low-key Washingtonian in a building full of brash Texans. He assembled a best-and-brightest team with résumés bristling with brand names like his own--Princeton, Stanford, Goldman Sachs. "He used to brag that he had all these Supreme Court clerks from Harvard working for him," recalled a campaign veteran. Bolten was happy to let others preen in meetings while he waited to make a killer point at the end. He has thrived by showing, very quietly, that he is indispensable. Now as President Bush's second chief...